Veteran-Owned Business Stories
The transition from uniform to founder is its own deployment — different terrain, same demand for discipline, and rarely a clear mission brief. Voice for Valor publishes veteran-owned business stories for founders navigating SDVOSB certification, federal capture, and the identity shift from operator to entrepreneur.
Read these essays if you are building after service or trying to understand how veterans turn military experience into a business edge.
Essays
- The Quiet Edge: Why Veterans Build Small Businesses That Don’t Quit — The federal government now targets 5% of contracts for service-disabled vets. That's $31 billion a year. Here's why veterans are built to earn it.
- The $50-a-Month War Room: AI for the One-Person Veteran Business — The Pentagon is writing AI into CMMC. Primes are spinning up governance committees. Most veteran-owned small businesses aren't using AI at all. Here's the five-tool stack that levels the fight —
- Build the War Room Before You Need It — A veteran founder's war room system for organizing decisions, deadlines, people, and mission before the next crisis or opportunity hits.
Veteran interviews
- Episode 22: Tony Whitehead — He Led Hundreds of Thousands. Then Everything Stopped
- Episode 21: Bernadette Maldonado — She Failed Out of College. Then She Flew for the Air Force
- Episode 17: Shelby Mounts — 25 Years in the Navy — Then He Learned a Truth No One Warns You About
- Episode 13: Sloane Rose — 32-Year Veteran Speaks Out — Transgender in the Military (Part 1)
- Episode 12: Josh Parrish — From Hardship to Heroic Impact — The VetLife Mission
- Episode 8: Shikina Tellis — From a South Carolina Middle School to Commanding in the Navy